The notion of a system of Celtic law from which all cognisance of crimes as crimes, all State authority, all power of enforcement was absent, which had no sanction except public opinion exercised through boycotting, is borrowed from Sir Henry Maine's "Early History of Institutions." Sir Henry Maine, however eminent his authority, acquired this notion from an inspection of a portion of the Ancient Laws of Ireland. The sort of judicature which he happened to find there was that which was administered by the Irish _brehons_ in courts of arbitration. Mr. Orpen shows familiarity with a much wider range of Irish literature in English translations. When he wrote his history, in which he claims expressly for himself the title of historian, he knew certain things, but the necessities of the case compelled him to forget he knew them. He knew quite well that the ancient literature in general ascribes the judicial function to every Irish king, the head of every Irish state, great or small. He knew that a hundred and a hundred times the good king is said to be a just judge, and the unjust judge is said to be a bad king. But when he assumes the _rôle_ of historian, he puts the microscope to the blind eye, and, though he knows the facts are before it, he is unable to see and describe them. In the very chapter which contains his indictment of Irish law, he quotes Standish Hayes O'Grady's fine collection of pieces of Irish medieval literature, the _Silva Gadelica_. I observe that his footnote refers the reader to the Irish text, not to the English translation, and the reader may conclude, if it please him, that Mr. Orpen is most at his ease among Irish originals. Since most of those for whom Mr. Orpen's work is intended are not familiar readers of Middle Irish, I would refer them to the volume of the English translations, where they will be able to understand and verify. On page 288 we find how Cormac, a stripling, came to Tara, where in his father's house the usurper MacCon held rule. When he arrived in the royal house, a lawsuit was in progress. The story proceeds thus: "There was in Tara a she-hospitaller, Bennaid, whose roaming sheep came and ate up the queen's crop of woad. The case was referred to Lughaidh [MacCon the king] for judgment, and his award was: the queen to have the sheep in lieu of the woad. 'Nay,' Cormac said, 'the shearing of the sheep is a sufficient offset to the cropping of the woad; for both the one and the other will grow again.' 'That is the true judgment,' all exclaimed: 'a very prince's son it is that has pronounced it!' ... MacCon's rule in sooth was not good: the men of Ireland warned him off therefore and bestowed it on Cormac."